Life Time Fitness (LTM) now trades at $71.86. The company’s board unanimously agreed to be taken private at $72.10 a share in cash. The merger is expected to close on June 10th. It is now May 19th. So, I’m going to call this one effectively over as a public company.
Quan and I did an issue on Life Time Fitness for Singular Diligence (back when it was called The Avid Hog) in November 2013. The stock price was then $48.51 a share. We appraised it at $79.69 per share.
With the stock trading right below the going private price – the value’s been fully sucked out of this idea.
“I have been thinking about portfolio construction lately.
…due to the strict standards you have, I thought it was very natural to just hold mainly four stocks…unfortunately, this method has shown its short comings lately. Both because of (your) mistake in picking CLUB/WTW instead of the other winners discussed in Avid Hog/Singular Diligence, and also because I am currently getting in touch with a lot more very cheap opportunities in the Asia region…I have also been rereading Buffett’s partnership letters and was reminded he once held like 40 stocks. Even though he concentrated at his top several positions sometimes and also he sometimes put 30% to 40% of his portfolio into the workout category, he did say they usually have fairly large positions (5% to 10% of their total assets) in each of five or six generals, with smaller positions in another ten or fifteen. (This) of course is a far cry from the 20%/25% position sizing we usually talk about…
What are your thoughts? Is it actually better to spread our portfolio a bit more?…I am getting more and more the feeling that finding the right stock is not the most important part, but picking the right ones to actually put money in is the key. Would (being) willing to spread a bit more make this key job easier? The very cheap stocks I am finding these days may not fit something you will invest in as they are likely not good buy and hold investments. Yet they are also not exactly like cigar butts, i.e. not of very, very low quality stuff. Is it wise for me to ignore them in my personal portfolio and just pick those that are more like the buy and hold category?”
I hold 4-5 stocks because I find that is most comfortable for me. You want to combine an approach that makes enough objective sense to work for anyone in theory with an approach that makes enough subjective approach for you to carry it out in practice. I found owning 20 stocks was not practical for me. I spent more time watching what I owned than coming up with a good list of new stocks to research. I didn’t spend enough time focused on what I was buying. When I owned 20 stocks, I spent too much time on the HOLDING and the SELLING and not enough time on the BUYING. It’s no accident that the only thing we do for Singular Diligence is tell you which stock to buy. We never revisit it. We never tell you to sell. It’s all focused on a one-time buy decision. I think that’s the decision that really matters. If you get that moment right the next 5 years or more will take care of themselves. There’s just a heck of a lot of time spent on stuff other than worrying what to buy next when you have 20 stocks. When you have …
The stock picked for the latest Singular Diligence issue was Swatch. Each issue of Singular Diligence includes articles on: 1) Overview, 2) Durability, 3) Moat, 4) Quality, 5) Capital Allocation, 6) Value, 7) Growth, 8) Misjudgment, and 9) Conclusion.
Here is one of those 9 articles – the moat article – from this month’s issue on Swatch.
Moat
Swatch, Richemont, and Rolex Will Always Dominate Swiss Watchmaking
Swatch’s moat varies depending on the price category. Swatch’s moat is widest for brands that retail between $800 and $10,000. The moat is narrower for watches that cost more than $10,000 or less than $800. This is because there are several distinct sources of moat in the watchmaking business. The greatest combination of moats happens in the watches in the middle price categories. These watches are expensive enough that the “Swiss Made” label and the brand name are important. However, they are inexpensive enough that manufacturing still involves mass production in some sense for some of the parts. This is not true of very expensive watches. Some watchmakers who focus on watches over $10,000 can make very, very few watches each year. So there are few production advantages in this category. The watches are also so expensive that a boutique mono brand store can be opened in just a few high end retail stores in cities around the world. So distribution power is not as important. Swatch has more production advantages than any other Swiss watchmaker. Rolex also has strong production capabilities as will be explained in a moment. Some other companies – like Richemont – have some production capabilities. They are much more than mere assemblers. But they are not as self-sufficient as they might appear. Swatch is vertically integrated. It does not need any outside company to exist for it to be able to produce its brands.
Let’s start with production. There are no production advantages in low-end mechanical movements that are not “Swiss Made”. A Japanese or Chinese company or a manufacturer of licensed brands that does not care if the watch carries a “Swiss Made” label can easily get a supply of foreign (non-Swiss) mechanical movements. The governments of both China and India encouraged the production of mechanical movements in the hopes of stimulating a domestic watchmaking industry. So, if a watchmaker does not care about the “Swiss Made” label they can buy movements from a Japanese company like Seiko or Citizen or from a movement maker in China or India. As a result, there is no production advantage – no moat for Swatch – in watch categories that do not rely on the “Swiss Made” label. For watches that do rely on the “Swiss Made” label, Swatch has a big production moat. To earn the “Swiss Made” label a watch must meet several requirements. One of these requirements is that the movement must be made in Switzerland. There are very few Swiss movement makers. It is difficult to get information on mechanical movement market share in Switzerland. …
